Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise to honor a long-time friend and a hero to veterans and to those who believe in justice in Ohio: Frank Anderson, a long-time leader of paralyzed veterans in Ohio, who passed away last week from complications of an infection.

Frank was a friend and a trusted advocate. He always spoke eloquently about issues facing veterans and people living with disabilities.

Confined to a wheelchair as a paraplegic for the overwhelming majority of his adult life, Frank was soft spoken, yet larger than life, with a commanding presence.

As a leader of the Buckeye Chapter of the Paralyzed Veterans Association, he drove himself to veterans events across Ohio.

He spoke out against inequality in disability pay--and the barriers that face disabled veterans, from health care to transit accessibility, to economic opportunity.

He was a strong advocate for the Americans with Disabilities Act. He fought to ensure housing was affordable and accessible for all Americans.

He testified in front of Congress on issues facing veterans in rural areas and would return that night to Cleveland to fight for veterans in cities.

He would always do so the right way--prepared in facts and figures, armed with anecdotes and stories.

Born in Cleveland in 1953, Frank Anderson graduated from East Tech High in 1971.

In 1976, he left Bowling Green State University to enlist in the Ohio Army National Guard's 107th Armored Cavalry Regiment.

In 1981, Frank was paralyzed after an 18-wheeler crashed into an Ohio National Guard convoy he was traveling in. He recovered and rehabbed at what is now the Louis Stokes VA Medical Center in Cleveland, meeting other disabled veterans--hearing their stories, learning from them, all becoming advocates charged with helping veterans.

While taking away his ability to walk for the rest of his life, the experience strengthened his will to serve and to live his life on his terms.

He remained active in wheelchair sports--playing tennis, lifting weights, and throwing a discus and a javelin.

He became a longtime leader for all Americans with disabilities and became a trusted leader in the African-American community.

He embraced life's challenges. He made the world better for all of us--even dressing as Santa for children at the Cleveland Clinic's Children's Hospital.

He traveled the country. He cooked his favorite seafood. He listened to his favorite old rhythm and blues music.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record Frank Anderson's obituary from the Cleveland Plain Dealer and a letter about Frank's life from Bill Lawson, president of the Paralyzed Veterans of America.

Mr. President, Frank served as director of government relations for the Paralyzed Veterans Association's Buckeye Chapter in my State.

He served as vice president of the Memorial Day Association of Greater Cleveland, as well as a commissioner of the Ohio Rehabilitation Services.

He belonged to the Governor's Council on People with Disabilities, the ADA Ohio Network, the Maximum Accessible Housing of Ohio, and the Greater Cleveland RTA, the transit system's Citizens Advisory Board.

He was a trustee of the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial in downtown Cleveland, responsible for installing its wheelchair lift.

I will miss Frank. I will miss his friendship, his wit, and his humor. But his State and Nation will miss him more--his strong will and his dedication to public service and the lives he helped to improve.

Frank was an inspiration to anyone in or out of a wheelchair--a tireless advocate whom everyone loved and respected.

On Thursday, December 15--a couple days from now--at Mount Sinai Baptist Church, on Woodland Avenue in Cleveland, Frank's family and friends will gather for his funeral--his going home.

I wish I could be there. I will be here. But I wish I could be there to say goodbye--to join his wife Joe Ann, their children Yolanda, Patrice, Chemenda, Tamika, Franklin and seven grandchildren and Frank's sister and two brothers.

For them, I offer my condolences but also reaffirm a commitment to serving Frank's cause on behalf of all disabled Americans, especially those who are disabled and paralyzed in service to our country.

Mr. President, I rise to submit a bipartisan resolution recognizing the 40th anniversary of the National Cancer Act of 1971--supported by 33 Democrats and 11 Republicans.

A special thank-you to Massachusetts Senator John Kerry and Kansas Senator Jerry Moran for their leadership on this issue.

It is unfortunate but likely true that we each know someone who has been affected by cancer. We know a survivor. We remember a victim. We know cancer affects not just the patient but the parents, the family, the friends, and the loved ones.

This year more than 1.5 million Americans are expected to be diagnosed with cancer. One out of every three women, one out of every two men will develop some form of cancer in their lifetimes.

More than half a million Americans die from cancer year after year after year, in any 1 year. More than one person every minute and nearly one out of every four deaths is from cancer.

We also know that behind the statistics there are thousands of people representing thousands of friends, families, and loved ones, with ribbons, donations, and races for the cure.

These are the stories that motivate us to fight harder and to fight with one voice. It is also a story of a nation's commitment to cancer research. There is interest in dealing with environmental causes. There is great interest in dealing with cures and prevention and all that we should as a nation and usually do know what to do.

Forty years ago, Senator Ted Kennedy from Massachusetts, as chairman of the Health Subcommittee, forged a bipartisan consensus and public demand to bolster investments in cancer research.

He held hearings. He worked with leading public health advocates and economists who understood the need for bipartisanship on such an urgent national need. His work, along with Jacob Javits, a Republican Senator from New York, led to the framework of the National Cancer Act.

When it was clear President Nixon would only sign the act into law if Kennedy's name were not on it, Kennedy backed off.

The goal was to put cancer research into a new era of discovery, and that is what the National Cancer Act did. It established a national cancer program, which expanded the authority and the responsibilities of the National Cancer Institute, and its parent agency, the National Institutes of Health. The National Cancer Institute is, by far, the biggest of the two dozen or so National Institutes of Health.

Today, 12 million cancer survivors are alive because of the advances in the way we prevent, detect, diagnose, and treat cancer. Because of the investments by the NCI, the National Cancer Institute, and the National Institutes of Health, critical cancer research is being conducted in hospitals and foundations and communities and in all kinds of centers everywhere and in our universities.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a list of more than 100 cancer research institutions, physicians, and researchers who have endorsed this resolution be printed in the Record.

It includes scientists and physicians working together on cancer research everywhere from the James in Columbus, to Case and UH and the clinic in Cleveland.

Ohio's universities and medical schools, teaching hospitals, Cincinnati Children's Research, small businesses, and other research institutions help bring cutting-edge cancer research to urban cities and small towns alike.

For the last 40 years, our Nation's commitment to cancer research has seen a tremendous return on investment in the millions of lives and the billions of dollars saved.

We have increased survival rates. We have advanced understanding of the diseases and the tools needed to cure them. We have better understood the connection between environmental factors and public health and diseases. We have realized the importance of prevention. We also know challenges remain--from finding more treatments to learning more and carrying out prevention better than we have, from dealing with environmental factors that we know cause large numbers of cancers and reducing costs for patients, to reducing disease burdens for different population groups.

Today's bipartisan cancer resolution on the 40th anniversary of the National Cancer Act reaffirms a commitment to address this national priority, to make sure cancer is a thing of the past.

Senator Kennedy said in those days, 40 years ago, when his legislation began to move forward:

There are few better investments in our future than the

investment we make in health research.

I echo the words of the senior Senator from Texas in support of our men and women who might be home on leave, might have been sent somewhere on Active Duty, that this is the least we can do.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business until 7:30 p.m., with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, 10 years ago this month--10 years ago actually tomorrow, I believe--the People's Republic of China officially joined the World Trade Organization. American businesses, we were told, would gain new access to Chinese markets through the removal of trade barriers, through increased transparency, through more stringent protection of intellectual property rights.

China promised to follow the rule of law, to reform its legal system, and, in turn, would gain new access to global markets. At the time of joining the World Trade Organization, China made a number of promises. Chinese leaders pledged to reduce trade barriers and open markets. They promised to increase transparency, protect intellectual property rights, and reform their legal system.

Supporters of the People's Republic of China, including a strong majority, unfortunately, of Members of this body and a much thinner majority in the House of Representatives--other supporters of the People's Republic of China were most of America's, almost all of America's largest corporate CEOs--argued that the WTO membership would bring human rights and freedom and the rule of law to China.

Now 10 years later we see a very different picture, a picture of a number of Members of the House in those days and some Members of the Senate and some opponents to allowing China into the World Trade Organization. We have seen something very different. American workers have seen millions of jobs shipped to China. Factories in places such as Youngstown and Charleston and Huntington and Dayton have moved to Wuhan and Shenzhen and Shanghai, with final products sold back to the United States.

Think about this. The business plan of a number of American corporations is to shut down production in Mansfield, OH, and in Zanesville, OH, and move that production to Beijing, China, set up companies there, and ship products back to the United States. To my knowledge, never in history has there been a country where such a huge number of companies have set up that business plan. Think about that-- shut down production in the country where you are located, lay off workers who have made you a successful company, hurt a community by closing down that plant, doing terrible damage to the schools, to the police departments, to the city services and all of that, and move your production to another country because you can work there more cheaply and sell products back to the United States. To my knowledge--and I could be mistaken about this, but nobody has ever shown me otherwise-- to my knowledge, never in world history has that been the business plan for so many companies.

American manufacturers that stay here have been undermined by a flood of cheap Chinese imports priced artificially low.

When a large corporation moves to China, so often that corporation's supply chain--the tool and die shop, tool and die maker, a machine shop--a small manufacturer that makes components and that sells to the larger company does not have the wherewithal to follow it to China, so they lose one of their biggest customers.

Those American manufacturers that stay here have been undermined by a flood of cheap Chinese imports priced artificially low. Some of those Chinese imports came from American companies that moved overseas to China.

Chinese citizens so often face poor work conditions, continual human rights violations. The country's sole Nobel Peace Prize winner is languishing in prison.

The big winners? The big winners are the multinational corporations here that have outsourced jobs, and the other big winner is the Chinese Communist Government and the apparatchiks they have enriched. Think about that. The big winners in this China trade policy are large American corporations that have outsourced jobs to China and the Chinese Communist Party, which apparently seems to be their allies in this, and the people in the Chinese Communist Party, the high-ranking apparatchiks.

So while American companies that stay here and American workers are following World Trade Organization rules intended to provide a common set of laws to ensure a level playing field for global trade, the Chinese are gaming the system. It is clear that China does not live up to its promises, does not live up to the unrealistic expectations of its supporters.

Far from becoming freer, the Chinese people are burdened with limited rights to basic freedoms of speech, religion, and assembly. I can't count the number of CEOs whom I saw walk the Halls--I was in the House of Representatives--of Congress and say: You know, if we pass PNTR, we are going to see freedom, all of this capitalism in China. All of these jobs in China are going to bring freedom--freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly in China.

No, it has enriched the country of China, to be sure. It has especially enriched the Communist Party, enriched the People's Liberation Army, enriched some of the capitalists in China in this Communist Party system. And it is getting worse. From the harsh crackdown on human rights lawyers and activists after the Arab Spring in the Middle East, to the brutal policies in Tibet that have led to a recent wave of self-immolations--imagine the depth of

feeling and passion and hopelessness and anger at an oppressive government that people who have such strong feelings would actually set themselves on fire in protest. From the crackdown on human rights lawyers, to the brutal policies in Tibet, the Chinese Community Party shows no sign of easing its grip on the Chinese people. Not only did their membership--their joining the WTO--not bring freedom and democracy to China, it did not bring fair trade either.

China has flouted WTO rules. China has gamed the system to its advantage. While China has chosen to comply with some WTO rules, overall the list of China's WTO violations is a long one: rampant intellectual property theft, massive subsidies for China's exports, hoarding of rare earths and other raw materials. China has refused to commit to the WTO's Agreement on Government Procurement.

I have stood here, as you have seen, Mr. President, in your time in the Senate, arguing for ``Made in America'' language so that when taxpayer dollars are spent buying products, those products should be made in America, paid for by U.S. taxpayers. I have heard conservative Washington politicians defending China, for all intents and purposes, saying: No, that would create a trade war, even though China will not sign on to an agreement on government procurement, which is exactly what their ``Made in China'' policy is all about. These violations not only show China's lack of respect for the rule of law, they also cost American jobs, and they also tend to stymie our economic growth.

American intellectual property-intensive firms alone have lost some $50 billion to intellectual property rights violations. Those same firms are reporting that better intellectual property enforcement could lead to almost 1 million new jobs. Some of the worst hit companies are in my State, struggling to compete against a country that manipulates its currency and subsidizes its manufacturers.

Given our companies' well-founded fear of retaliation by Chinese regulators and companies if they speak up, we in government must give voice to their concerns. Let me explore that for a minute.

When we have launched--typically a labor union in the United States will launch a petition for a trade complaint, if you will, alleging violations by China of trade rules. Often the American company where these workers work is unwilling to join that petition. Why? Because they do business in China, and they know China will, in some cases, exact some kind of revenge against them. So our companies are not willing to stand up to the Chinese because they know what the Chinese will do when they are doing business in China. So it is up to us, as these companies' representatives, as these workers' representatives, as these community representatives, to stand up.

Probably the most damaging of China's violations is its continual manipulation of its currency. By deliberately holding down the value of its currency to boost exports, China is not only violating WTO commitments, they have built the largest trading surplus in history to the detriment of other leading trading partners.

The Senate fought back this fall by passing the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act. I authored this legislation with a bipartisan group of Senators--Senator Snowe from Maine, a Republican; Senator Schumer from New York, a Democrat; Senator Graham of South Carolina, a Republican; Senator Sessions of Alabama, a Republican; Senator Stabenow of Michigan, a Democrat; Senator Casey of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, and several others. This bill is the largest bipartisan bill that passed the Senate this year. It passed with 63 votes--joined, in fact, by the junior Senator from my State. Senator Portman, former Trade Representative in the Bush administration, voted for this bill. This bill would crack down on China currency manipulation and provide an opportunity for Republicans and Democrats to come together to put American jobs and American workers first.

They said it represented the largest bipartisan jobs bill passed this session of Congress.

Currency manipulation provides an unfair subsidy to Chinese exports-- of up to 40 percent, according to most economists. Almost all economists agree it is at least 25 percent. C. Fred Bergsten, an economist with the Peterson Institute for International Economics, who is fairly conservative, has asserted that China's intervention in currency markets and other subsidies they have provided makes up the most protectionist policy of any major country since World War II.

American politicians and CEOs are always afraid of standing up to the Chinese. They say we will look protectionist or that it looks as though we are starting a trade war. When Fred Bergsten, a mainstream economist, says that what China does is the most protectionist policy of any country since World War II, it is time we stood up and forced them to play fair. That is not a trade war. That comes from China. They have been waging a trade war against the United States for 10 years. That is why we have seen our budget deficit grow from double figures a decade ago to more than a half billion dollars a day, day in and day out, 7 days a week.

Additionally, American manufacturers seeking to sell products to China--our Nation's fastest growing export market--are hit with the same percentage in what amounts to an unfair tariff. If a company in Brunswick, OH, wants to sell products in China, they are hit with a 25- percent or larger currency tax and currency tariff. So the product costs 25 percent more, at least. When a Chinese company wants to sell a product in Brunswick, competing with that company, they get a 25- percent bonus or advantage. That is hardly a way to practice fair trade.

A report released this fall estimates that our trade deficit with China, exacerbated by Chinese currency manipulation, has caused the loss of more than 2.8 million American jobs in the past 10 years--with two-thirds of the lost jobs in the manufacturing industry. The Presiding Officer, when he goes to Altoona, Bethlehem, or if he comes to Dayton or Toledo, sees the kind of damage this trade policy has done to American manufacturing. All of our problems in manufacturing are not because of our relationship with China and because they have gamed the system, but millions of jobs here have been lost and undermined because of China's gaming the system.

The first President Bush said a billion dollar trade deficit or surplus is equivalent to 13,000 jobs. So when we have a greater than $200 billion persistent year-in and year-out trade deficit with China, that means we sell $200 billion worth of fewer goods to them than they sell to us. Do the math. It is 13,000 jobs per billion dollar budget deficit.

Addressing currency manipulation through the trade remedies included in our bill, cosponsored by Senators Graham, Snowe, Schumer, Sessions, Hagan, Casey, and others, would provide immediate relief to American job creators. A report released earlier this year showed that addressing currency manipulation would support the creation and retention of more than 2 million American jobs, without requiring any government spending. That is why this is such an important jobs bill, because it is not spending any taxpayer dollars, it is just saying level the playing field for our companies and our workers dealing with China.

After years of China gaining benefits of WTO membership without adhering to its rules--and they promised they would under the rule of law 10 years ago this week when they joined the WTO--after years of them getting membership and getting the benefits of WTO membership, without agreeing to its rules, it is time for Congress and the administration to act in our Nation's interest. The Congress should pass a bill and the President should sign the bill.

American workers and American manufacturers can compete with anyone. But they cannot compete on a playing field that is far from level as long as we continue to let China do what it wants without repercussions.

Over the last 10 years, China has sought to sidestep and reshape the WTO to benefit China at our expense. That is not competing, that is cheating. We must act while we still have a chance.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, it never ceases to amaze me to hear my colleagues whose first loyalty is to Wall Street banks, who continue to make excuses for being against putting a consumer cop on the beat. This is an office that will be a few-hundred-million-dollar office, this consumer protection--this consumer cop on the beat.

But this consumer cop on the beat has to look at trillions of dollars in mortgages, has to protect consumers when there are $30 billion in overdraft fees alone that banks are charging, when many times those overdraft fees are because consumers simply cannot figure out the fine print and do not understand the terms of the agreement.

In the end, again, people on this floor and their special interest friends in the Congress, the friends of the Wall Street banks, the friends of these interest groups that continue to fleece the American people--if we had had Rich Cordray or Elizabeth Warren, for that matter, the consumer cop on the beat, would we have had those kinds of foreclosures in places such as Cleveland and Dayton? Would we have had these fly-by-night mortgage brokers from Ameriquest and New Century and others moving in and taking advantage of people? I am not sure we would have.

But my Republican colleagues, my colleagues who always do the bidding--not all of them, but many of them always do the bidding of these special interest groups that have inflicted far too much damage on this economy--I hear all this, that if we would just make some changes in the agency. I talked to the Senate Historian because I have heard these arguments: If we just change this agency, I would vote for it. First of all, I talked to the Senate Historian, who said: Never in the history of the Senate has one political party tried to block the nomination of a Presidential appointee based on wanting to change the agency. It is nothing about the qualifications of Rich Cordray. I know Rich Cordray better than anybody in this institution. He is from my State. He was our attorney general. He was the State treasurer. He was county treasurer. He was a State legislator. I have known Rich for over 20 years. I know he is qualified. Many of my colleagues on both sides say he is qualified.

But they say: We want to change the agency. We worked with Republicans to change this agency as it went through the process in Dodd-Frank. They kept shifting the goalposts. In order to accommodate Republican concerns, we made the CFPB a bureau at the Federal Reserve. Many of us thought it should be totally independent. We were willing to make that concession in order to get Republican support.

They then, after we did that, asked for regular GAO audits of the books. They got them. The GAO said the CFPB passed with flying colors. They said: We do not like Elizabeth Warren, give us someone else. Elizabeth Warren withdrew. She was a great consumer activist, would have been very good at this. We are replacing her--the President is-- with Richard Cordray from Ohio. He will do this job well.

Then, after he is appointed, they say--and Richard Cordray has support from banks and credit unions and consumer groups. That is still not good enough. They asked the President not to recess appoint a Director. The President agreed to that. They are moving the goalposts. Now they are saying they will not approve anyone to serve as the Director of the consumer bureau unless we change the Bureau.

In other words, to protect their Wall Street friends, they are saying: We are not going to allow a Director to be in place unless we weaken this agency. As Senator Reed from Rhode Island said, would we not appoint a Director of the Food and Drug Administration in the future until we rolled back all food safety laws? Are we not going to protect the Consumer Products Bureau in the government, in the Department of Commerce, until we roll back child toy safety laws? That makes no sense.

This was voted with more than 60 votes--61 or 62, if I recall--a supermajority in this Congress 2 years ago. We allowed all kinds of amendments. We accepted many changes that Republicans wanted. But in the end, it is a choice: Are we for consumers or are we for Wall Street? We know who it is. I am not asking my colleagues to vote for him. I am asking my colleagues to let us have an up-or-down vote. Let us vote on it. Do not filibuster. Do not block the vote.

Understand, this is a vote coming up that is to break a filibuster, to break a Republican filibuster, where Republican Senators almost always are flacking for Wall Street. They do that. It never ceases to amaze me.

So all we ask is an up-or-down vote. Vote yes for cloture so we can have an up-or-down vote for Attorney General Cordray.

I yield the floor and ask for a ``yes'' vote.

Madam President, I go home every weekend, back to northeast Ohio where I live in a town called Avon in Lorain County. I want to go home at Christmas. I want to be with my 3-year-old grandson and my three daughters and son. But I also think our obligation, as Senator Durbin said, the assistant majority leader, is to stay here and get our work done. And ``get our work done'' means extend the payroll tax cut and extend unemployment benefits.

If we do not do that, frankly, we are ruining the holiday season for tens of thousands and dozens of tens of thousands, if you will, of Ohioans and Illinoisans and North Carolinians. If we do not do that, we do not deserve to be able to go home and be with our families. I am not trying to be a martyr, but I think it is shameful a group of people, in order to protect the highest income taxpayers in this country--those making over $1 million a year--continue to block an extension, a continuation, if you will, of this tax cut for working families.

In my State the average tax cut that we will vote for today, and continue until it happens is about $100, $110, $120 per family per month. It is absolutely unconscionable not to do that.

Senator Durbin also talked about the constitutional amendment to balance the budget. I want to recount something I heard earlier today on the Senate floor. Two of my conservative colleagues--one from Kentucky, one from Utah--spoke about the importance of a balanced budget amendment. I supported a balance budget amendment in the past when I was in the House of Representatives. In here I have actually voted--it was part of an effort to get us to a balanced budget in reality in the 1990s. When President Bush took office we had the largest budget surplus. We balanced the budget and then some. We had the largest budget surplus in American history.

I was part of that. I was proud of that. We accomplished what we set out to do. We accomplished what we said we would, and we accomplished something very important for our country. It was then in the first years of the last decade--in 2001, 2002, and 2003--that we went to war, two wars, Afghanistan and Iraq, and we did not pay for them.

President Bush, in those days, pushed through two tax cuts--one in 2001, one in 2003--that went overwhelmingly to the wealthiest Americans, without paying for it, without offsets, cuts, or other taxes. Then President Bush also pushed through--at a very close, middle-of-the-night vote in the House of Representatives, by, I believe, one vote or two votes--a Medicare privatization bill that basically was a bailout for the drug companies and the insurance companies and did not pay for that. That is why we got to this situation, unfortunately, where we have had this terrible budget problem.

What I wanted to address is what the solution of a couple of my colleagues seems to be. To their minds, there seems to be sort of a moral equivalent of, on the one hand, asking millionaires, people making a million dollars and up, to pay their fair share and making Medicare beneficiaries and Social Security beneficiaries take big cuts.

So I heard my two colleagues basically say this: that if the Democrats were serious about moving toward a balanced budget--and, again, 15 years ago we did it. We absolutely did it with President Clinton, got to a balanced budget, got to a surplus.

They said if the Democrats are serious about that, they will raise the retirement age for Social Security, and they will raise the eligibility age of Medicare. Let me tell you why that is a bad thing. I was in Youngstown not too long ago at a townhall meeting. A 63-year-old woman stood up and said--62, 63 years old.

She said: I just need to stay healthy and stay alive until I am 65 so I have health insurance. I need to be able to stay alive for another couple of years so I can get on Medicare and have health insurance.

Imagine living your life that way, when you are thinking: I just have to stay alive until I am 65. Then I will have good government Medicare health insurance. So some people here say: Well, tough luck. We are going to have to raise the eligibility age of Medicare to 66, 67, 68, whatever my very conservative colleagues are proposing--from

Utah and Kentucky--raise the eligibility age for Medicare as if that is going to make them better.

When you think about it--I want 62-year-olds--one reason we passed the health care reform, I want 62-year-olds to have health insurance. One, it is good for them. Second, it is way better for the country, including taxpayers, that they get health care before they get sicker and sicker and end up in the emergency room or end up with cobbled- together health care that is much more expensive, let alone what it does to this lady and her family.

Second, they proposed to raise the eligibility age for Social Security. Now, it is easy for people around here to dress like this who, for all intents and purposes, talk for a living--work hard at what we do but talk for a living and work in offices and, you know, do not do heavy lifting and are not exposed to the elements and all of that. It is easy for us to say: Let's raise the Social Security age to 70 because, God willing, we will still be here if the voters vote us in and we can keep doing this. Most of us are pretty healthy and do not work around asbestos and are not doing heavy lifting, are not working in the snow, in the rain, in the heat.

Well, when I think about raising the retirement age to 70, here is who I think about. I think about construction workers. I think about women who cut hair. I think about a waitress who works at a diner. I think about someone who works at a factory in Brunswick, OH. I think about people who walk the floors in retail. We are going to tell them that--we who dress like this, we who have jobs like this are going to tell those constituents--and there are millions in my State and tens and tens and tens of millions around the country, working-class citizens of this country who simply cannot work until they are 70.

If you are cutting hair, if you are changing sheets in a hotel, cleaning out bathrooms in a hotel, if you are working as a carpenter or a laborer or sheet metal worker, if you are working as an auto worker, a steel worker or nonunion in a tool-and-die or machine shop, you probably cannot work until you are 70. Your body probably will not be able to function in the workplace, with the physical and mental demands now to work in the workplace until 70. Yet people here think it is OK to do that.

The people here, I would add, can retire if they have 20 or 25 years in the House and Senate. They can retire at 60 or 62 or whatever and get a full pension. That is why I have introduced legislation--not opposed to their balanced budget amendment. I think it has all kinds of mechanisms in it that lock in low tax rates for the richest people in this country. I will not get into that. Senator Durbin talked about that.

But I have introduced the legislation that simply says if we raise the retirement age to 70, then Members of Congress cannot retire with a pension until 70. Why should Members of Congress be able to get a pension at 62 or 58 if they served enough years, but a Social Security beneficiary should not until a decade or so later?

So it is important, as we talk about balancing the budget, as we talk about our fiscal situation, not to make a moral equivalence between the richest people, the richest 1 percent in this country paying their fair share in taxes, making that a moral equivalence to Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries having to endure significant cuts.

Some people around here call Medicare and Social Security entitlements. They can be dismissive: We have to fix entitlements. Well, talk to a 72-year-old in Dayton or a 68-year-old in Zanesville or an 81-year-old woman in Xenia or Springfield, OH, and they will tell you oftentimes this is not really an entitlement, this is an investment. They paid into Social Security. They paid into Medicare. They want to make sure the government fulfills the covenant that we made over the last 75 years in the case of Social Security, 45 years in the case of Medicare, the covenant that we made between our government and the citizens of this country. That is the importance of that. We need to think twice.

That is why my legislation was introduced, in part, that Congressmen and Congresswomen cannot receive a pension before the same retirement age as Social Security beneficiaries. We need to think twice before we are going to tell a carpenter or a barber or a retail worker or a steel worker that we are going to raise the retirement age and make them work until 70 so they can receive Social Security benefits.

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, November is Prematurity Awareness Month, but as the month comes to an end, our fight against preterm births and complications caused by prematurity continues daily in hospitals, homes, and research facilities across the country.

Each year in the United States, more than half a million babies are born prematurely. More startling, over the last 25 years, the rate of preterm birth has increased more than 36 percent. Today, prematurity is the leading cause of newborn death in the United States.

Additionally, a preterm baby is four times more likely to have at least one medical condition, such as cerebral palsy and learning and behavioral problems. And the life-long health complications caused by pre-term birth also have a serious financial burden on the child and parent. A premature birth costs, on average, $51,000 in the first year alone; premature births cost our nation $26 billion annually. Yet, despite the costs in lives lost and families burdened, medical research and innovation continues find new cures and therapies.

On the Federal level, beginning in 2003, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) invested approximately $21 million in research for a drug--progesterone or 17P--to prevent preterm birth. 17P was found to reduce preterm births by 37 percent in high-risk pregnancies, and compounding pharmacists were able to provide compounded 17P to women for a mere $10-$20 a dose. Earlier this year, however, a pharmaceutical company received exclusive rights to manufacture the drug and increased the price by 14,900 percent to $1,500 a dose. But because of the advocacy of Ohio's leading children's hospitals from Cleveland to Cincinnati--because of the stories of pregnant women I met in airports and community halls, we raised the public's awareness to the astronomical price gauge and increased public demand against the company to reconsider its pricing. The company eventually reduced the cost of its branded version of 17P, Makena, from $1,500 a dose to $690--still significantly more expensive than the compounded version. Given the public and Congressional outcry and the importance of the medication to pregnant women and their babies, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that compounding pharmacies would still able to offer women the more affordable version of 17P. Our work continues to make such a life-saving drug more affordable and available to millions of women who depend on it.

But despite the success of 17P in preventing preterm births, more needs to be done. Every year March of Dimes grades each state on their rates of premature birth. While Ohio is improving, the current 12.3 percent premature birth rate--or 500,000 children annually--leaves Ohio with a C grade. Fortunately, hospitals, patients groups, and public- private partnerships are working to reduce preterm births in Ohio.

In 2009, central Ohio's four hospital systems--Nationwide Children's Hospital, The Ohio State University Medical Center, OhioHealth, and Mount Carmel Health System--as well as the Columbus Public Health Department, Franklin County's Board of Commissioners, and non-profit groups came together through Ohio Better Birth Outcomes (OBBO) to reduce the number of preterm births in Franklin County. OBBO's efforts include home nurse visits to low-income mothers from the 28th week of gestation through the child's second birthday and education and counseling for mothers about ``safe spacing'' of pregnancies. By allowing their bodies at least 18 months to fully heal between pregnancies, their subsequent pregnancies will be healthier. Through this work, OBBO was able to increase gestation time by an average of six weeks and two days. For each week a woman is able to carry her baby between 36 weeks and 39 weeks, the baby has a 23 percent decrease in respiratory diseases, seizures, brain hemorrhages, and other complications.

Ohio is also home to the Ohio Perinatal Quality Collaborative, which consists of 45 clinical teams from 25 Ohio hospitals. The Collaborative, based at Cinncinati Children's Hospital Medical Center, includes all of Ohio's children's hospitals as well as regional hospitals such as Akron's Summa Health System, the Toledo Hospital, the Mount Carmel Hospital System, St. Elizabeth's Health Center in Youngstown, and Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton. Twenty-four teams are focusing on reducing catheter associated infections in preterm babies and the other 21 teams are focusing on reducing the number of deliveries that occur between 29 and 36 weeks gestation.

In my hometown of Mansfield in Richland County, Ohio, the Community Health Access Project (CHAP) stepped in after discovering that certain groups of women were three times more likely to give birth to a low birth weight infant. Through a series of community outreach initiatives, CHAP community health workers and local volunteers were able to identify and break down barriers, such as transportation needs and cultural differences, to better address the health needs of at-risk pregnant women. In its first three years, the number of low birth weight babies in the region showed a decline from 22.7 percent to 8 percent and CHAP has become a national model in community health services.

At University Hospitals (UH) in Cleveland, the MacDonald Women's Hospital and Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital implemented a Centering Pregnancy Program in 2010. This unique, group-based program targets socially at-risk women who are least likely to receive consistent prenatal

care and have the greatest risk of having a low birth weight baby or delivering prematurely. The program has enabled UH to dramatically reduce incidences of preterm births and low birth weight babies by 8 percent and 8.7 percent below the national average respectively.

November has come to an end, but I look forward to continue working with organizations and health systems in Ohio and across the country to reduce premature births and ensure a healthy start in life for our Nation's children.

I rise to discuss my amendment No. 1260 with the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. This amendment would strike section 846 of the bill, which would establish a new exception to the requirement to purchase specialty metals that are produced in the United States.

Over the last several months, a number of concerns have been raised about this provision. In particular:

The provision is not needed, because domestic titanium is cost- competitive with foreign titanium and the cost of titanium has not been a major cost driver in DOD weapon systems.

No specific case has been raised in which U.S. companies have lost contracts or manufacturing jobs as a result of a price difference between U.S. and foreign titanium.

If the new exception in section 846 were abused, it could undermine the preference for domestic titanium and result in the loss of U.S. jobs.

Administering the new exception could create significant burdens on both defense contractors and the Department of Defense; and the Department's existing authority to make Domestic Non-Availability Determinations (DNADs) already gives it the flexibility it would need to address a significant price differential, should it arise at some point in the future.

Is the chairman of the Armed Services Committee aware of these concerns?

I appreciate the Senator's assurance, and I withdraw the amendment on that basis.

Amendment No. 1262

I rise to discuss my amendment No. 1262 regarding the definition of specialty metals produced in the United States.

Under section 2533b of title 10, U.S. Code, specialty metals included in weapon systems purchased by DOD must be produced in the United States. This requirement has been in place for more than 30 years and for most of that time, the Department interpreted the requirement to apply to metals that are ``melted'' in the United States.

After Congress re-codified the requirement in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009, however, DOD decided that a metal is produced in the United States if any part of the production process takes place in this country. That includes finishing processes such as rolling, heat treatment, quenching, or tempering. This is a substantial change to the definition that has a direct impact on domestic production and American jobs, which I know the ,Chairman has defended throughout his career.

My amendment would restore the long-standing definition of what it means for a metal to be ``produced'' in this country--that it must be ``melted'' here.

Is the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee familiar with this issue?

I appreciate the Senator's assurance, and I withdraw the amendment on that basis.

Amendment No. 1419

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Our economy, as the Presiding Officer and others know, demands two major priorities from Congress right now: to reduce spending and to foster job creation. Equally important, you cannot do one without the other. We cannot only cut our way to prosperity. They cannot be mutually exclusive goals. We can make sensible reforms that reduce the deficit while promoting job creation.

Here is what we should be talking about: first, closing tax loopholes for companies that ship jobs overseas and encourage American job creation. That saves $19 billion over 10 years. It will mean companies choosing to manufacture in the United States instead of China, instead of Mexico, in many cases.

My State, Ohio, is the third leading manufacturing State in the country. We produce more than any other State except California, three times our population, and Texas, twice our population.

Second, let's give faster access to generic drugs to treat breast cancer and MS and rheumatoid arthritis. That saves $2.3 billion over 10 years. It saves for taxpayers. It saves for insurance companies, meaning insurance rates will go up at a much lower rate. It saves for individuals reaching into their pocket and paying copays.

Third, let's strengthen and streamline the farm safety net. That saves $20 billion over 10 years. There is simply no reason that large farmers who have profitable years need to get direct payments, need to get farm subsidies. Establishing a safety net makes sense. If prices are particularly low for a couple of years, if yields are particularly low for a couple of years, farmers need that safety net because we do not want to lose more family farms. But do not continue to give farm subsidies to farmers who simply do not need them.

Fourth, let's ask the wealthiest Americans to go back to the same tax rate they paid during the Clinton years. That will raise $800 billion over the next 10 years. During the Clinton years, 21 million private sector jobs--net increase--occurred, even with a higher tax rate on high-income people as we balanced the budget, and during the 8 Bush years, two major tax cuts mostly for the wealthy, which the Presiding Officer and I and others opposed, under the belief that trickle-down economics would work, there was only a 1 million private sector net increase in jobs in those 8 years. We started with a huge budget surplus and ended with a huge budget deficit. We know that kind of economics does not work.

Those four ways are just four of the many I can talk about at another time of reducing our deficit and making our economy stronger. Too many in Washington seek to undermine one of the programs that kept our country strong in good economic times and bad economic times; that is, Social Security.

I am now a grandfather. I turned 59 a couple of weeks ago. Our first grandson is 3 years old. I understand it becomes more personal. I understand how grandparents now get to spend more time with their grandchildren. Margaret Mead once said: Wisdom and knowledge are passed from grandparent to grandchild.

The Presiding Officer, who has enough gray hair, would understand that, understands that because Medicare and Social Security have helped Americans live longer and healthier lives, it does give us--that is why it is personal for me, it does give us more time with our grandkids, and passing on that knowledge and wisdom that only grandparents can then give to their grandchildren.

Yet too many seniors have worked hard, played by the rules, and require Social Security simply to live. More than half of Ohio's seniors get more than half their income in their retirement years from Social Security. That is how important it is. Some seniors get almost all of their income from Social Security. That may be as little as $1,000 or $1,100 or $1,200 a month. That is what they live on.

Yet as more and more seniors rely on Social Security, they went 2 years without a cost-of-living adjustment. Why? Because the cost-of- living adjustment under Federal law--this is not the fault of the President, although it may have been several Presidents ago; this is not the fault of the Congress, although it may have been when it was decided several Congresses ago--but the law simply says that the Social Security cost-of-living adjustment is the so-called Consumer Price Index, which is determined for a typical 40-year-old in the workplace, not a 70-year-old who is in retirement. The 40-year-old in the workplace has significantly lower health care costs, perhaps has higher transportation costs getting to or from work, while the senior who is 70 has significantly higher health care costs as a percentage of their income and significantly higher heating costs, just to keep warm in the winter, cool in the summer, because of their lifestyle.

This Consumer Price Index, which is the determination for whether you get a cost-of-living adjustment, is based on a working 40-year-old, not a retired 70-year-old. That is what we want to fix. That is why I have introduced my legislation to do CPI--instead of CPI-W, Consumer Price Index-Working Person, the way it is now, to change it to CPI-E, Consumer Price Index-Elderly, to base it on those who get the COLA.

America's seniors did not get a COLA the last 2 years because it did not reflect their cost as much as it reflected not very high inflation among 40-year-old working families. Belle, a senior community activist from Shaker Heights, recently shared with me her story that seniors across America can relate to, how difficult it is to meet their needs when Social Security benefits do not. Half of her income goes to health care costs not covered by Medicare--hearing aids, glasses, dental care, in addition to supplemental health insurance she pays. And as Belle will tell anyone, she, like millions of Americans, worked hard and contributed to Social Security. They do not see it as--the word we use around here--an ``entitlement;'' they see it as an investment that they made because every working person in Denver, in Colorado Springs, in Aurora, in Cleveland, Columbus, and Dayton paid into Social Security and Medicare every day of their work lives. They have invested. They have earned it. They were promised it.

But, presently, as I said, COLAs are based on the Consumer Price Index for workers, for wage earners, instead of the Consumer Price Index for the elderly. Those 65 and older tend to spend about twice as much on health care as the general population, twice as much out of a smaller income, than half as

much out of a bigger income that a 40-year-old would get.

So that is where we need to go with the Social Security cost-of- living adjustment. But in the so-called supercommittee, which was not able to come to an agreement, there were many in the supercommittee, particularly Republicans, particularly sort of ultraconservative politicians who do not much like Social Security to begin with, wanted what is called the chained CPI. The chained CPI. They called it a technical fix. But it is really a regressive tax increase that would cut senior citizens' cost-of-living adjustment.

They did the chained CPI because it would save Social Security money. Well, to save Social Security money, what does that mean? It means you are taking money from benefits, especially for low and middle-income seniors, which is most of them. Those are people who rely on Social Security for most of their income.

Their chained CPI would mean the annual benefits for a typical 65- year-old would be $136 less. Over time, a typical 75-year-old would receive $560 less a year, and at 85 they would receive $1,000 less a year, and at 95, as more seniors live to that age, when they need their benefit, the cut is $1,400 a year. You know, that may not be much money for my colleagues, but it is a lot of money if you are a senior living on a fixed income.

We know how to balance this budget. We did it when the Presiding Officer and I were in the House of Representatives. We did it with a Democratic President and a Congress that at least would go along with him and did not draw these lines in the sand and make signed pledges to lobbyists. They are signing pledges to lobbyists, saying: I will not do this; I will do not do that, instead of thinking for themselves and signing a pledge only to the Constitution of the United States of America.

We knew how to get to a balanced budget. We can do this. We did it in the 1990s. We got to a balanced budget without reducing the cost-of- living adjustment, without turning Medicare over to the insurance industry. You know, to me there are some radical Members of the House of Representatives, there are some in the Senate, who want to see Social Security turned over to Wall Street, let them run it; Medicare over to the insurance companies, let them run it.

When President Bush wanted to privatize Social Security in 1995, the Presiding Officer was in the House of Representatives. Imagine if we had gone along with President Bush's idea to privatize Social Security. Imagine what would have happened. We know what happened to people's 401(k)s. Imagine what would have happened to the monthly Social Security payments.

The government, as much as people criticize it, has never failed once to pay a Social Security check on time. It never failed to pay it at all. Since 1937, when Social Security paid out its first lump sum, I believe, or death benefit, and in 1940 when Social Security started paying monthly benefits, it never failed to pay, never paid late. So we know how it works.

If we had turned it over to Wall Street, who knows what would have happened. If we had turned Medicare over to insurance companies, as the Ryan proposal over in the House wants to do and as 40 colleagues here want to do, who knows what would have happened. We know it would not be Medicare the way we are used to it. We know it would not be Social Security the way we are used to it or the Medicare that serves the American public or the Social Security that serves the American public. Those two programs, if lifted 75 years ago--it was for the poorest, lowest income, the most indigent part of our population, seniors. It reduced the poverty rate dramatically so that seniors are no longer the poorest demographic of our population. Regrettably, children are, and we need to do better than we have done there.

Mr. President, it is clear that some of these radical proposals to privatize Medicare and turn it over to the insurance companies, privatize Social Security and turn it over to Wall Street, to do this chained CPI that will reduce the cost-of-living adjustment, because some egghead in some think tank in Washington, probably funded by Wall Street and insurance companies, thinks it is a great way to extract a few more dollars from seniors and do whatever they do with more dollars in the Treasury--it is pretty clear what we need to do to get a balanced budget, and it is pretty clear what we should not do. We can all work together and get to that point.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 337, which was submitted earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 338 and S. Res. 339 en bloc, both of which were submitted earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to en bloc, the preambles be agreed to en bloc, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements related to the resolutions be printed in the Record.